Apple is advising developers not to bank on the Java environment being present in future editions of Mac OS X.
The latest Java looks likely to be the last.
“As of the release of Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 3, the Java runtime ported by Apple and that ships with Mac OS X is deprecated. Developers should not rely on the Apple-supplied Java runtime being present in future versions of Mac OS X,” Apple explains.
Java is a cross-platform programming language which has been built-into Mac OS X since the first version — indeed it was touted as a selling point of early releases.
The change won’t affect most Mac users — save for fewer software updates and more free disk space — but it may have an impact on some small developers of enterprise applications.
One, Scott Fraser, chief technology officer at Portico Systems, emailed Steve Jobs to raise his concerns about the impact of dropping Java.
“We create and sell Enterprise software into the health care space,” he wrote.
“Our software is Java based and runs both on the server and the desktop. We have been in business for over 12 years now and are a healthy growing company with about 180 employees.”
The reply, purportedly from the Apple chief executive’s email account, explains that is not possible for the company to maintain an up-to-date version of Java for OS X.
“Sun (now Oracle) supplies Java for all other platforms,” “Jobs” wrote. “They have their own release schedules, which are almost always different than ours, so the Java we ship is always a version behind. This may not be the best way to do it.”
